


In the hollow wound

by laughingpineapple



Category: Myst Series
Genre: Absent Characters, Gen, Rebuilding, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-22
Updated: 2014-12-22
Packaged: 2018-03-02 18:11:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2821490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laughingpineapple/pseuds/laughingpineapple
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Water and time clean all. The numbness left by her son's departure will not heal, so Anna works with what she is given.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In the hollow wound

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Allerleirauh](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Allerleirauh/gifts).



> Happy Yuletide! I love Anna too, I should get around to writing her more (and not only during the saddest period of her life, poor thing)... so thank you for your prompt :)

 

 

 

On the first rain since Gehn left, Anna cries - she has become the desert, harsh and dry, and her rain was kept for too long under the surface. She feels like clay. As night falls, crouching by the fireplace, she molds herself back into a solid shape.

 

On the second, she thinks she sees him limping toward the Cleft as the storm blurs the barren landscape. The figure does not come closer, so she curses her science, as no pole left sticking for a project is worth this heartbreak, but on the following morning, that stretch of the horizon is empty.

 

On the third, a light drizzle, she had not yet emptied her tears. It is over now. Maybe she can rebuild.

 

( _Maybe she can rebuild._ The humble thought that strikes on this day will resonate beyond these walls, an echo spanning through centuries. She only meant herself)

 

On the fourth rain, she asks herself why. The list is old and long, starting with 'why mother', but all pains dull against the last: why Gehn, when did we go wrong. The lucid desert sky only ever offers silence; the rain is kinder and whispers stories in her ears. Anna cannot tell whether they are answers or simple tales, but she is grateful for the company.

 

On the fifth, she stays in bed. Under a blanket, as the rain pours outside, she is a child again, a child of the desert and, for a time, a child of D'ni. A daughter of a city can claim a face of stone. A child can still grow. Her roots reach deep inside the earth. She will rebuild.

 

It is like the rocky edges of the Cleft itself: Anna's wound, too, will not heal. But it can be filled with life.

 

On the sixth rain since Gehn left, Anna dances barefoot once again.

 

 


End file.
